Time To Grow Up

Mike just had his performance review and while his boss said all the right words the translation was “GROW UP.”

Mike is in his late 30’s and has two kids, a wife, mortgage and a sleek car. They go on several vacations a year. Mike buys everyone great gifts. He is good to his parents. He is also a clever salesman and makes money for his company.

Yet, he was told to “GROW UP.”

Mike happened to have my book “Don’t Bring It to Work,” and while he was reading it something grabbed his attention.

When stress is high he would get high. No, not that kind of high! Mike would get “high and mighty” and start to tell people how good he is and that they should listen to him. He would brag and boast and become the center of attention.

Mike explained that when he was growing up he was the sibling who had to constantly prove to the world how wonderful he was, but his older brother, on the other hand, being the quarterback of the football team going on to win a scholarship to MIT, was always getting attention.

Mike needed help. “What can I do when I get stressed and start the “me, me, me” stuff? I can’t seem to shut up; I get defensive and have to prove to the world that I am perfect.”

After reading “Don’t Bring It to Work,” Mike is already half way to home plate; or in his brother’s lingo, close to a touchdown.

What is good is that Mike can already see where the pain point is and how it started. If more folks in the workplace could understand the concept that what we learned in our original organization, the family, gets played out in our present organization at work we would have much less conflict and less toxic stress during our workday.

Okay, now what to do. Mike took the PatternAware™ Quiz to find out that he is a Super-achiever. Super-achievers change when they begin to realize that success doesn't have to entail only individual accomplishment, but that it can be more rewarding when it includes working together and collaborating. With this new awareness, Super-achievers can stop their habitual judgment of others and rethink the essence of that emotionally packed word “success.” The attainment of wealth, position, and fame are included, yet they are no longer the only purpose for defining what really matters in designing one’s life. You see Mike’s task was to transform his super-achiever tendencies to become a creative collaborator.

When super-achievers come together in support of a larger vision for the common good, amazing things can happen. In the business world, the demand for creative collaborators is greater than ever. This century will demonstrate that only very rarely can one person alone produce what we need. We must remember that greatness comes from group effort.

Super-achievers who tackle the need to be “the one,” when they learn to include, to work together, to collaborate, gain entrance into a more rewarding world of heightened creativity where it is easier to achieve a state of intense focus and immediacy, what is commonly described as “flow.”

It does take some real effort to talk about the core reasons for stress and it takes a grown up attitude not to deflect or ignore what causes you to behave in ways that get in the way of next level success.

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Sylvia Lafair, PhD, is an international leadership and communications expert and president of CEO - Creative Energy Options, Inc., a global consulting company focused on optimizing workplace relationships. Dr. Lafair's talents to make the complex simple, has revolutionized the way employees cooperate and teams collaborate. Her award-winning book, "Don't Bring It to Work" (Jossey Bass) has been ranked in the top of Amazon's best-selling workplace books. She is often quoted as a workplace relationship expert in newspapers and magazines across the country, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, CIO Magazine, New York Times, as well as being on radio, webinars, television, and presenting at national conferences. Sylvia Lafair has two business blogs, "Elegant Leadership" and "On the Cutting Edge of Change," and is a contributing writer in WomenOnBusiness.com, Examiner.com, and EvanCarmichael.com, as well as other trade publications.